Roman Kovalenko, MD, is a board-certified neurosurgeon, specializing in spine surgery. He graduated with his MD with honors from Military Medical Academy S. M. Kirov, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. He then completed an internship as a general surgeon at the same university and worked as a researcher at the Scientific Research Institute of Military Medicine in Moscow. Dr Kovalenko completed neurosurgery residency at North-Western State Medical University. For several years thereafter, he worked as a neurosurgeon at R. R. Vreden Russian Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics. Since 2015, Dr Kovalenko has been working at Federal Almazov North-West Medical Research Centre. He has earned numerous awards for research in neurosurgery and military medicine over the years.